I have an old car on the other side of the country that I drive once a year for a month. The rest of the time the car sits on blocks in a sheltered place. The problem is the battery. A did a Google search to find out what is the best way to keep the battery charged for 11 months without causing sulfatation and the loss of electrolyte. I found several trickle charge designs, some are voltage-driven trickle chargers, some are current-driven. I found that the voltage and current levels are often not consistent between designs. Any recommendation for a reliable source of design parameters? TIA, Gene
Voltage/current level, trickle charger, lead battery.
Mar 04, 2006
6 Replies
A good source for batteries and their maintenance:
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An interesting technique some use with cheap trickle chargers is to put the charger on an AC timer switch so that the charger is only on for something like an hour a day. That does an excellent job of preventing overcharging and is cheap as well.
Good luck.
Chuck
Epsil> I have an old car on the other side of the country that I drive once a year
Thank you for your replies, they were very useful. I was able to find what I was looking for. Gene
look at something called a float charger. its like a trickle charger only smaller :)
...and has a better temperature coeficient.
But, if the OP lives on a boat, no - a float charger generally doesn't.
And it is only a tiny step to turn an outboard motor into an overboard motor...
BTDTGTTS..
;)
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